


Two To One

by TheMuteOracle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 2005 San Francisco Giants, Gen, Post-Hogwarts, Pregnancy, San Francisco Giants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 22:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2445503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMuteOracle/pseuds/TheMuteOracle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after "The Fiddle Player's Daughter," Laura takes Hermione and Ron to see a baseball game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two To One

August 29, 2005: Here we are in San Francisco, at the ballpark! Traveling with Hermione and Ron has been one moment of utter strangeness after another, but we made it.  Coming here with these two was not actually the best idea I've ever had.  Neither of them knows a baseball glove from a baby's bottom, but I'm excited! It's a far cry from the little ball field back home, even if these seats are not the greatest.  A person could spend astounding money on tickets here, more than I make in a year, and the team isn't even very good.

To be fair, I think Hermione has been at the library preparing herself.  Ron seems to think the game will be played in front of us in mid-air, but she knows enough to correct him on that.  I told them I've got this score card, so I'll write down everything that happens and we can review the whole game when it's over.  That drew blank stares.

And here she is, Hermione, just barely showing her condition.  Not _too_ pregnant.  She was definitely eyeing those food vendors on the way to the seats here.  What's it like when witches are pregnant?  Will she wave her wand at a hot dog and turn it into three hot dogs?  And with all that magic, _surely_ they do something to make childbirth easier, don't they?  I doubt she'll tell me.

Play ball!  Top of the first!  The Giants take the field.  Ron has a confused look; I'm betting he expected actual giants.  It's my lucky day, though.  This pitcher is a brand new boy from Tennessee on his first night in the big leagues.  A fine specimen of a southern boy, just up from the farm team.  I think he was mucking stalls just last week.  You have to get those arm muscles somehow, don't you?  The opposing team is from Colorado.  I told Pa we had tickets to see the Giants play Colorado and he swore up and down there was no such team.  When did Colorado get a baseball team, anyway? Maybe just last week? The young farmer is mowing them down like a hay field here.  Pop fly, strike out, fly ball — a quick inning!  

Bottom of the first.  I explain to the Magical Couple that the Giants are having an off year because their great slugger Barry Bonds is injured and has missed most of the season.  Ron asks if he's the star player, and I say, not just the star, but one of the greatest of all time.  If I wanted to be mean I'd call him the Viktor Krum of baseball, since I know Ron falls into a sulking mood whenever someone says the name "Viktor Krum."  I shouldn't make him mad.  I should be glad Ron talks to me at all, shouldn't I?  So. Giants lead-off hitter whiffs at three pitches in a row.  Shortstop, batting second, hits a single.  Next guy hits a weak fly ball to the center fielder.  Which, Bonds being injured, brings up the makeshift cleanup hitter, who apparently happens to be the manager's son.  This manager is old as dirt.  The son is at least half the age of dirt but still has legs enough to beat out a ground ball and move the runner over to second base.  The next guy hits a lazy fly ball for the third out, though, so it all amounts to nothing.

There's a girl behind me who is also keeping a scorecard.  Only she got a late start, so she had to ask me about the first batter of the game.  Was it a strike-out?  And I get to look down at my scorecard and say no, a pop up. Luckily she didn't ask me for his name, because I don't have that yet. And then up walks the lemonade vendor.  Oh no, Ron wants to buy lemonade.  I hope he remembers how to use money.  I'll lay low until I'm needed.  

Second inning.  Farmer Boy's streak just ended.  Matt Holliday came up, swung at the first pitch, and sent it on a holiday into the bleachers. Ron says "that guy's a pretty good beater" just as some more neighbors in the section start showing up.  These people are most assuredly not drinking lemonade.  I look at one guy and think, _try not to spill beer on my friends, but if you do and then they turn you into a frog I'm really sorry._ After the home run, farmer gives up a walk but then gets three quick pop-ups.  The Giants' six, seven, and eight hitters come up in their half of the inning and do _nothing, nothing,_ and _nothing._ Colorado 1, Giants 0. 

Third inning.  Herm & I  journeyed to the bathroom.  We talked baby names.  She likes short names like "Rose" that nobody will ever mispronounce.  Ron doesn't believe anything happened on the field while we were gone.  Seems correct.  I ask the scoring girl behind me, whose name is Summer, and she describes the nothingness in detail.  I have to say, the seagulls in this place are not shy.

Top of the fourth.  I am not just scribbling in here; I am finally catching up with my names and lineups.  Farmer Boy's name is Cain.  The inning starts with Cain and Helton facing off like a bullfighter and a bull.  The bull fouls off pitches, works the count, and draws a walk. Eventually they get Helton to third base and then he scores on a double play, about which I must say, _oh, this shortstop._ Why haven't I been watching him the whole  game? A veritable ballet dancer. A forty-year-old ballet dancer in cleats. _Substituting for Miss Pavlova in tonight's performance, and batting second, Omar Vizquel._ Anyway: 2-0. 

Bottom of the fourth inning, and Summer's boyfriend has shown up with a basket of fried potatoes smothered in garlic.  Mrs. Gestating-Weasley dispatches Ron to buy one of these baskets for us, though I fear that the seagulls are preparing to battle her for every last morsel.  Meanwhile, the Giants finally score when Junior Cleanup hits a home run.  Colorado 2, San Francisco 1.  

Then we get to the fifth inning, and the Giants send a relief pitcher over to start warming up, as Cain's slot is due to lead off the Giants' half.  He gets the first two outs, gives up a walk, and then out comes Helton again with a runner on first.  Their previous confrontation was merely a skirmish; this one is outright warfare.  Cain has to deal with holding the runner from stealing second base, and Helton works the count to 3-and-2, and then fouls off a pitch.  And fouls off another.  The crowd loves it.  A roar swells up before every pitch, as if to tell Cain he's had a great debut, even if the Giants are losing.  By the time Helton has fouled off the twelfth or thirteenth, you feel like he's been at the plate for twenty minutes.  And then Cain wins: Helton hits a fly ball to right field, and the cheers all around us are deafening.  The wizards look puzzled but join in cheering.  Maybe they're having a good time, after all. 

I flip my score card over to record the bottom half of the inning, and the lousy pinch hitter has already struck out before I can even write his name in.  Well, buddy, if you can't do any better than that, don't expect to find your name in _my_ book.  The next two guys don't do any better.  The beer-drinking crew next to us all get up _en masse,_ put on their sweaters, and walk away up the aisle, and I realize how cold it's getting.  I've never been this cold in August.  Behind us, Summer shivers.  Just beyond the outfield bleachers, the gulls are amassing a flock; they are organizing, forming divisions: _Army on this wall; Air Force over there..._

Ron has struck up a conversation with Summer's boyfriend.  "It's my first time out here," Ron says, "to America." 

"And your first baseball game?" 

"Sure is. I haven't a clue what's been happening out there.  Kind of a subtle sport, isn't it?"  

Everyone in San Francisco does computer work.  Who could imagine all these different kinds of computer jobs?  You make computers, or you program them, or you keep them running, or you sell them, or you do something utterly different but sit in front of them all day anyway.  Summer says she's art director of a computer magazine.  The boyfriend's a software-something-or-other.   

Summer wants hot chocolate.  At once we all agree that we are cold and sore and need to stretch, so all five of us get up, and the boyfriend leads the way toward the hot chocolate stand.  Who really needs to keep score, anyway?  My interest left the field when Cain did.   

We follow the path around the infield stands and all get paper cups full of sugary, foamy hot chocolate, not bad for drinking and quite good for cradling in your hands.  By the time we've all paid for them and start walking back, the crowd stands up to sing _Take Me Out To The Ball Game._ Ron says, "Even if I don't entirely follow the sport, this whole thing is a great distraction.  Hermione here has a baby coming along in a few months and I spend most of my time cowering in terror at the thought of _me_ being anybody's parent, you know." 

Summer congratulates Hermione, but I sense trouble right off the bat.  Marriage and children are touchy subjects for these two big-city computer people.  I can sense their little magnets spinning around away from _Monsieur et Madame Weasley_ and towards me.  Right here, towards safe, single Laura, who understands baseball and isn't from some foreign country and isn't likely to talk about anything taboo.  Help!  If they only knew! I'm not even from the same _century_ as these people!

Folks have already started leaving.  The score is still 2 to 1.  The game dwindles into anticlimactic nothingness, while the seagulls on the perimeter have doubled and redoubled their numbers and now pose a clear threat to take over the ballpark. We sit through one more inning, then say goodbye to the computer pair and head out the gate.

Across the street is a large bookstore, with a cafe in back.  It's nice and warm.  We order drinks.  Ron assures me they will be limiting themselves to a tidy, small family where no child feels left out or ever wants for attention. 

"Maybe two kids." Hermione adds.  "There's a lot of pressure on an only child." 

I say, "I think the baby topic struck a bad note with those people at the game." 

Hermione looks thoughtful.  I still love it when she looks thoughtful.  "They seemed pretty well established to me.  Not like a first date.  Comfortable with each other.  You don't think they'll break up, do you?"

Then Ron Weasley says, "They just don't always know how to communicate yet.  We were like that, once.  When you came here, the first time you met Laura, we just didn't have it yet.  It's funny, you'd think after everything we'd been through, we would know how to talk, right?  But really, we didn't."  

It happens to me every time: I underestimate a guy, and then he says something like this, and I realize how unfair I've been. 

Hermione says, "Laura probably gets some credit for that." 

Ron nods.  "Oh, I know she does.  I always knew.  Everyone always says it was Harry and Ginny getting engaged that gave us the bug, but that wasn't it, was it?"

Hermione looks at us.  Both of us.  "Nope.  It wasn't."  

Ron adds, "After Hogwarts, we were all traumatized.  Even though we won.  I mean, so many people died."  He looks at me.  "My own brother, even.  We really kept to ourselves for a few years.  It's been great to step beyond all that and make a new friend."

I say, "You're sweet, you two." 

The game is over.  Final score, 2 to 1. Through the window, you can see great masses of people filing out the gates and down the sidewalk.  I suppose baseball can be bittersweet.  You can be sunk near the bottom of the standings, late in a disappointing year, playing on a cold night in late August.  The last-place team can come into town and beat you in an anemic kind of way.  But a new guy steps up and makes a promising debut, and everyone has something to be happy about.  Everyone, even my two friends, who are here because I had the silly idea to bring them, here even as I already dread the long years until I expect to see them again, here but hardly able to follow the game.  Even they enjoyed a moment of levity, suspended between the gravity of the past and the gravity of the future.

 


End file.
